


Unspoken Understanding

by cosmogyrals



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:39:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Martha both deal with their abandonment issues in the only way they know how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken Understanding

It's a late night in the Hub; Martha's poring over a sheaf of autopsy reports dating back to the early twentieth century, looking for symptoms similar to the case she's studying back in London. Mysterious haemorrhages are, it would seem, surprisingly more common than she'd first thought. Jack's there because, well, Jack's always there. Everybody else has left - even Ianto, as indicated by the now-cold mug of coffee by her elbow.

Shortly after midnight, Jack comes over to her desk. "Planning on going back to the hotel, Doctor Jones?" he asks her, giving her a crooked smile.

Martha shrugs, smiling back at him - it's something that's habit with Jack; you can't not smile back when he turns that dazzling grin of his on you. "Nightingales are nocturnal," she points out, using his nickname for her. She doesn't want to admit that her hotel room is too dark and too quiet for her to sleep in alone. The silence frightens her like nothing else; she keeps waiting for something to _happen_ \- but it never does. If anybody's likely to know what it's like to be on edge all the time, it's probably Jack.

Jack studies her for a long moment and sits down on the edge of her desk, carefully moving a pile of yellowed papers out of the way. "He hasn't contacted you, has he?"

No need to ask who he is. Martha shakes her head. "Did you expect him to?" Jack knows what he's like, probably better than anybody else - he abandoned him to his fate after he was brought back to life, after all.

Jack surprises her then by reaching out and running the pad of his thumb along her cheekbone. "I thought he might have seen how hurt you were." Martha closes her eyes at the touch, but Jack's right - he's the only person who's managed to see past her mask.

"I'm fine," she insists anyway, trying to keep the facade up.

He gives a rueful laugh, tipping her chin up to look at him. "You and me both, Martha." And it's true; Martha can see the same broken look mirrored in Jack's eyes. Jack used to want a Doctor to fix him; she wonders if that still holds true. Maybe he's been damaged beyond that now - but broken beyond repair? She doesn't think so. She's not so sure about herself, but she tries not to think about it much, like avoiding prodding a sore tooth with her tongue.

And before she knows it, Jack's leaning in to kiss her. She shouldn't be terribly surprised - it _is_ Jack, after all - but the kiss isn't anything like what she'd expected. It's slow and sensual and a little bit sad, and she can't help but respond in turn. He threads his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer - though the height difference between them makes it difficult. 

Jack breaks the kiss off, giving her a questioning look as he holds his free hand out to her. She thinks of Tom, waiting for her back in London, thinks of his sweet kisses and bold, decisive caresses - and she takes Jack's hand anyway. There will be time for regret later. Now, Martha needs someone who _knows_ her.

He leads her to his sofa; Martha bites back a sarcastic question about how many other people he's shagged on it as she sits, shrugging out of her labcoat and leaning up to kiss along his jaw. Jack is solid and strong and _real_ \- a Fact - and if anybody can chase away her phantoms, it's him. His skin is smooth beneath her lips, the scent of his aftershave unfamiliar but pleasant. He pulls his braces off as she unbuttons his shirt, smoothing the white cotton fabric of his undershirt over his broad chest. When she shifts away from him to take off her blouse, he wraps his arms around her, holding her close in a crushing embrace for a few moments, resting his chin on the top of her head. She can hear his pulse, steady and strong - only one heart. Her eyes suddenly sting with tears, though she's not sure why.

Jack lets her go, kissing her eyelids tenderly before grasping the hem of her shirt and tugging it over her head - and then his smile returns, banishing most of the sadness from his face. He discards his own undershirt, tossing it somewhere in the direction of his desk, and now his kisses turn heated as he touches her, his callused fingertips roaming over her smooth skin, leaving trails of fire in their wake. 

Her own melancholy has fled, too; it's just her and Jack now, limbs entangled on the sofa - and she has a brief thought about the Hub's surveillance cameras, but disregards it. Hopefully, Jack will be able to take care of the footage. (If not, she'll never be able to look Tosh in the eye again.) It's sometime during this train of thought that pants are tossed aside - her knickers managing to make it all the way to Owen's computer monitor - and pretty soon, she's too distracted to think properly at all, her mind given over to more animalistic instincts.

Martha starts crying again during sex itself, the tears streaming down her face; it's a desperate, lonely act, the two of them trying to compensate for what they can never have. Jack kisses the tears away, trying to soothe her, but she knows he feels the same way; that they'll never truly be free of any of it. The desperation creates a strange combination of melancholy and arousal - but the arousal slowly overcomes the sadness, and they finish, crumpling into a spent heap on the sofa.

She doesn't quite remember getting dressed afterwards - Jack pulls her back into his arms almost immediately, somehow knowing what she needs most, and holds her till she falls asleep. When she wakes up in the night, she's alone, a fuzzy blue blanket draped over her and a pillow propped under her head. It's the first time she's slept without nightmares since leaving the Doctor.

"You've got a long day of work ahead of you, Martha," Ianto greets her the next morning, offering her a fresh cup of coffee as she rolls her head, trying to work the kinks out of her neck. She studies him for a long moment, wondering if he knows about what she did last night - if it would bother him to know that Jack sleeps with other people. Jack smiles at her over the rim of his own mug, then winks, his good humour back in place. Ianto can't know about the burdens of Jack's past, much in the same way that Tom doesn't know about hers. Sometimes, she thinks, it's necessary to be with people who understand who you really are.


End file.
